💌Hanlon’s Reader #6: January Newsletter

📦 "The test is simple. Remove your hand from the box, and you die." 💉

Jan 25, 2024

^📅Monthly Update: January 2024

👨‍🚀 Here’s me, casting storylines out into the universe 🎣

🎉 142 Subs 🎉
💚 Thank you all for your support 🧡

I’m going to harp a little bit on how much I appreciate y’all for subscribing. Some of the 📙Non-Fi stuff I’ve posted on here has been pretty off the cuff, written in the moment, usually sparked by something I’m pissed off about.

So it feels pretty good that I’ve noticed some people who came in on the heels of the SAN controversy have started reading through my backlog of stories. Feels good just to have a backlog of stories, honestly. But I came here for readers, and I have some.

I’ve refined my slapshod plan from last month, but this is still all with the disclaimer of being a “for now” plan until I see how things progress:

📗Short Stories can be:
Full length on Ko-Fi & Amazon
Free Parts on Substack
Free on Substack until complete for 90 days, then archived
📘Books can be:
Full length on Ko-Fi & Amazon
Free Chapters on Substack
Free on Substack until complete for 90 days, then archived
📙Non-Fiction is:
Free on Substack
💌Newsletters are:
Free to all readers
These will be my public track record, hopefully to give others insight into my time here and “write a ladder” for others to climb, teaching useful things I have learned so far (on Substack, in writing, in life, etc)

When you see this button here, it will take you to my Ko-fi Homepage where you can give a tip/donation of your choosing, or set up a recurring monthly payment. I know it’s a pain in the ass and I’m sorry for that, but I’m also not ready to give in on Paid Subscriptions.

Buy Me A Coffee ☕

If you haven’t seen Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie, you’re welcome. This kind of top-tier recommendation is worth easily $1, and as a bonus you’ll get to become the one-and-only official Highlander of Hanlon’s Reader. ⚔

I wish I could promise you a sick outfit and sword, but alas, I can offer only a listicle

⚡EDIT: MAJOR UPDATE⚡

I BESTOW UPON JEFF THE TITLE HIGHLANDER OF HANLON’S READER

That was so fast! Thanks Jeff!! Appreciate ya. For my next goal, we ~~make~~ pay for art!

Is handing out AI-generated images like candy in exchange for donations possibly contributing to the problem? Perhaps. But it’ll all come full circle when I pay a cover artist real dollars for new art, based on the AI art, but made by a human. Perhaps?

Unless I missed it, the most Substack has done about the SAN thing is begrudgingly shoo away several of the most violent fascist Substacks and promise vague improvements to moderation tools here.

I want to be encouraged about what’s happened so far, but it all still just feels… gross. But hey, welcome to the internet, right? It’s always been a weird place. You take what you can get, and I’ve found some cool people—I’ll take it.

Anyway, until further notice in one of these 💌Newsletters, the best way to show me your support (I keep telling my bosses this) is to pay me for my work 😊

Click preview image to check out my ☕Ko-Fi Shop EPUB Page

🔃 In Progress: Writing a Ladder 🪜

What’s that mean? I don’t know yet. Something like this:

I hope you enjoy extended metaphors! Get it? Because it’s a ladder? Sorry

I’m in dire need of expanding my 📙Non-Fiction selection beyond the anti-Nazi. What do I know well enough to feel confident telling other people about, besides how Nazis are bad?

Well, what I do have is… a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired from a very odd set of career choices. Skills that make me a nightmare for typos and missing data points. If you Subscribe now that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you… but if you don't, I will completely understand, I will never hold it against you and I will wish you well.

Sorry, did I start doing the bit from Taken again? I really need an editor.

More to come on this, and maybe you can help by answering a quick poll about what you’d prefer to see in the future:

📘 Also in progress, my first book!! 📘

📘The Star Pirate’s Folly — 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

❗❗ Upcoming:

Part 3 concluding *Strange Harvest* short series

🎁 Bonus Content:

Watched this already? Do it again. Didn’t watch it? Do it now. The whole movie is like this and I just wish there was more. “Tostadas!”

For this week’s REAL 🎁Bonus Content, let’s play a game! Can you guess from memory what these quotes are referring to? No cheating, we’re on the honor system here! Comment below if you know any of these:

💌#1: "If you ain't first, you're last." 🏁 🏎💨

💌#2: "... it'll be dark soon and they mostly come at night. Mostly." 👾 🌃🚸🌃 👾

💌#3: "All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's?" 😐🍷 🍷🤔

💌#4: "If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from." ☀🏜

💌#5: 😎 "Kaneda! What do you see?!" 🌞